


Ritual

by AwCoffeeNo



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Herbalism, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Rick Grimes/Michonne, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Unresolved Romantic Tension, plausibly canon-compliant, prison Negan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwCoffeeNo/pseuds/AwCoffeeNo
Summary: When autumn comes, everything… gets worse. Rick's mostly been able to hide what's going on from everyone at Alexandria, but he finds he can't hide anything from Negan.





	Ritual

In the early autumn mornings, Rick wakes up before the sun, and makes himself tea. 

There isn’t a lot of space left in Rick’s world to be alone, but this remains a ritual which he stubbornly performs in private. 

St. John’s Wort blooms in the fall, profusely, a brilliant yellow set off against the deep green of the woodland understory. It’s not difficult to identify, either: bright green egg-shaped leaves, and a tiny starburst of stamens coming out the tops of its five-petaled yellow flowers. It’s not difficult to find growing along the damp edges of the woods near Alexandria, and the flowers dry easily, hanging in Rick’s kitchen, looking for all the world like they’re entirely decorative. 

It’s not decorative. Rather, it’s medicinal. 

Then, in the early mornings of late autumn, Rick is grateful Michonne sleeps as late as possible in the mornings. Only Judith is ever awake with him. Her hair is growing in a beautiful pale yellow, which matches the dried flowers which he pulls from their stems and steeps into a tea. 

He can still hold her easily on one hip while he works, and she’ll mostly just doze there. She's getting big now. In maybe another year, he won’t be able to hold her easily like this, and Rick intends to enjoy it while he can. 

No one has had to know about this. Not since he stumbled to Siddiq’s door in the dead of night, almost two years ago. That awful late autumn night, desperation had driven him to the other man in wee hours of the morning, oozing with the shame which drove him to wake Siddiq from his sleep instead of risking rumor catching on of Alexandria’s leader taking ill with some mysterious illness. 

The truth is, it’s not particularly mysterious at all. The days get shorter, and the nights get longer, and everything… gets worse. 

It's nothing new. It happened before, too. 

Ages ago, Lori would complain that he got quiet in the winters. Quiet and distant. It had been a source of tension between them, and even though he’d been completely aware of it, he’d still been unable to do anything about it. She’d asked him, on occasion and in hushed tones, to _go see someone_. She’d never said it more explicitly than that, like if she uttered the words _depression_ or _therapy_ at their kitchen table, the very roof might fall down on their heads. Instead, they’d spent morning after dark winter morning sitting across from each other in silence which Rick couldn’t think of the words to break, Lori stealing worried glances at him while he sipped his coffee. 

Even on occasions when she worked up the nerve to confront him, even modestly as she did, he’d always rebuffed her. He could handle it on his own. Had, for years. He was fine, he _really was._

But after Carl’s death, he found he was anything but fine. 

Rick’s thankful beyond words that they found Siddiq. He is absolutely sure there is no other doctor left on this earth he would have brought this to. 

When Siddiq saw Rick, standing at his back door in the frozen November night, wearing a tee-shirt and his boots jammed on over scrunched-up sweats, he’d pulled Rick into his home in an instant without a single word having to be spoken. Rick’s sure he’d looked horrible: his hair unbrushed, still in the clothes he’d worn to bed, deep purple rings under his eyes. He doesn’t quite remember, now, but he thinks it had been days since he’d slept, or eaten a proper meal. 

Siddiq had sat him down in his living room and listened patiently while Rick struggled through a faltering confession, his eyes soft with understanding. 

He’d give Rick… not a solution, not exactly, but exactly what he needed. Just something to keep him going. He’d laughed, nervously, when he’d proposed it. “You probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out psychiatric medication is just about impossible to find,” he’d said, “but I can think of something else we can try.” 

St. John’s Wort is a mild antidepressant.

It grows profusely, in the woods at the outskirts of Alexandria, and its flowers are really quite beautiful. 

_It’s nothing to be ashamed of_ , Siddiq had promised him, as Rick was leaving his house. He had clasped one hand on Rick’s shoulder as Rick thanked him, standing with him at the door, the cold night air rushing in. Siddiq’s hand was warm, even as worry darkened his eyes, and his touch burned right through the thin fabric of Rick’s tee shirt, and with it came a rush of warmth to Rick’s chest which had almost brought tears to his eyes. 

It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but that doesn’t mean that it’s anyone’s business, either. 

When, two years later, fall begins gives way to winter, and the relentless ache returns to his chest, Rick doesn’t think much of it. He’s not slipping up, not anymore, not like he was two years ago. 

He’s… managing. 

—

When Negan brings it up, at first, Rick doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

These days, usually, Negan is silent when Rick comes down to visit him. He’s lucky to get two sentences out of the other man. _Lucky,_ he supposes. He calls it luck, even though back when Negan was talking to him, the first year he was down in his cells, the other man reached such incredible, ecstatic pinnacles of cruelty that it would sometimes rob Rick of his sleep for days. 

But it troubles him worse now that Negan doesn’t talk.

Sitting in the sliver of shadow in his cell which the outside light fails to reach, and peering out at Rick with glistening eyes which offer nothing back to him but the movement of his own reflection, it is impossible to parse the shape in the darkness that is Negan. Rick doesn’t know, on these days, if he’s speaking to the personified horror which almost robbed him of every last scrap of what’s worth living for in this world, or to some empty vessel, some trophy of his which _used_ to be Negan, but which now seems to be little more animated than a wax statue. 

“So,” Negan asks, two weeks into November, coming to stand right up against his bars. “We gonna talk about this?” 

“Talk about what?” 

“Talk about how _you’ve_ been goin’ around, lookin’ like someone just killed your puppy, these past two weeks?” 

Rick isn’t proud of this: he sets down Negan’s lunch tray with a clatter, barely within the other man’s reach, and leaves in a hurry. 

—

“What exactly do you think I do down here, all day long, when you’re not around?” Negan says, the next morning, when Rick turns up again, braced for his company: he’s freshly-showered and safely buttoned into a clean shirt. A soft blue, which matches his eyes — it makes him look good, and he knows it. Michonne steals soft and half-concealed smiles at him when he wears it, as if he somehow doesn’t see her, as if they’re two college kids trading looks across a classroom instead of two grown adults who share a bed every night. 

For a moment, when he steps down into the basement and sees Negan’s cell lit in the outside light of the pale autumn, he thinks he sees something glinting in Negan’s eyes, too. It disappears into shadow the instant the door swings shut behind him. 

“What do you do while I’m not here?” Rick says back, almost automatically, as he makes his way down the stairs, the barest note of suspicion in his voice. 

“Oh, I sleep just like a baby, Rick," Negan says, sprawled out on his bed. “Just like a baby, you know. Slept like a rock, my whole damn life, even after all _this_ shit.” One of his hands goes up, and scratches through his lengthening beard, absently. “So I sleep for twelve, fourteen hours a night, and I wake up, and I see the light comin’ in that window up there, and I cry. 

“ _Excuse _me?”__

____

“Yeah,” Negan drawls, casually. “I said it. What the hell do I have to hide? I see the fucking light of day, comin’ in that window, and I know I ain’t ever gonna feel it again myself unless I bust my ass out of here. These days, I figure, there is absolutely nothing better I have to do with my time than cry about it.

____

Rick furrows his brow in confusion. This particular line of thought, coming from Negan, is… unexpected, to say the least. “What are you saying?”

____

“I’m _saying_ , I know misery when I see it, and I figure you should talk about it.”

____

Rick feels himself go tense. _Misery._ “We treat you well here, Negan. Better than you deserve.” 

____

This doesn’t even give Negan pause. “See, that? That is exactly what I’m talking about! Way I see it, you’re the only thing standing between me and the angry mob right now. So if I wanna keep living, and bust outta here someday and see the sun again, _which I most certainly motherfuckin’ do_ , I figure this is all in my best interest, right? It’s real important to me that you don’t off yourself on my watch.” 

____

_You’re gonna rot down here, Negan._ It’s on Rick’s tongue, reflexively. He’s said it dozens of times before, and he’s about to say it again. He’s about to cut Negan off, and go at him with all of hell’s fury for _daring_ to try to get under his skin like this, for daring to lie to him and tell him that he understands a modicum of what Rick’s going through.

____

But he stops short. 

____

He catches the… uncertainty, in Negan’s voice, through the practiced rise and fall of his cadence, and that softens his anger somewhat. “I’m fine,” he hears himself saying, remarkably softly. “I _am_.” 

____

Negan’s hair is cut short now, but to compensate for it, he’s refused to let anyone touch his beard, the majority of which is now shot through with white. Rick watches as Negan runs his fingers through it, absently, scratching at his throat. 

____

He rolls to his feet, keeping his voice low as he paces forward, closer to Rick. 

____

When the other man speaks next, Rick can hear distinctly the added scratchiness which has been present in his throat ever since Rick slashed it open. “Like shit you are. Look, your _kid_ died, and way I figure, you ain’t been right since --” 

____

He cuts himself off as Rick tenses. 

____

“Don’t,” Rick hisses, almost surprised by the venom in his voice. “Don’t you mention him, don’t you _dare_ say his name.” 

____

Rick can see Negan now, as he moves into the light, putting his hands up in a gesture of defeat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? Fuck, Rick, listen to me. I know there probably ain’t anyone on this earth right now you hate more than me, so if you wanna take that shit out on me, if that would _help you?_ Go right ahead. I can take it. No one but you talks to me -- and I mean _ever talks to me_ \-- so whatever you need to get out, do it. I did it to you. I _know_ you remember the shit I said to you. C’mon. Who the fuck am I gonna tell?” 

____

Today, on Negan’s plate: roast squash and fried eggs. Over-easy, just like he likes them. Rick’s still holding it in one hand. “Your eggs are gonna be cold,” he says softly, and sets the plate down. 

____

Negan presses his face right up against the bars, as Rick leaves. “Rick, wait! --” 

____

Years ago, when he and Lori would sit in silence together at their kitchen table, before Carl was awake and before Rick had to go to work, he hadn’t known how to talk about the ever-present ache in his gut. He’d just sit there, staring across their cluttered kitchen table and into the darkness down the hallway toward Carl’s room. On the better of those days, Lori wouldn't try to get him to talk. She would just reach across the table and curl her hands around his, wordlessly. 

____

Maybe he still doesn’t know how to talk about it. 

____

\-- 

____

On Sundays, they have picnics in the garden. 

____

Rick supposes he isn’t sure it’s Sunday. When they first arrived at Alexandria, he’d set his watch to Deanna’s clocks, but he’d lost time before that. Back at the prison, there’d long stretches of days where nothing seemed to matter beyond the position of the sun in the sky, and knowing anything beyond that seemed laughable. On the road to Alexandria, too, long stretches of days passed where time didn’t seem to mean anything at all -- where any kind of future was so inconceivable he didn’t bother to wind his watch or count the days. 

____

Now, he supposes, it doesn’t really matter what day they would call it if the passage of time was still measured by atomic clocks and iPhones. Sunday is Sunday because, on that day, Gabriel has mass in their community church, and Rick packs a lunch for his little family, and they eat it outside by the garden, and the whole thing makes Judith grin from ear to ear. 

____

Things like this, Rick absolutely requires of himself. There’s no room for his unhappiness when they lay out their blankets at the edge of the yard, and spend the day as a family. The same goes for days when he’s home long enough to spend a morning in bed with Michonne. For days when they all eat breakfast together, the three of them. The same goes... for a lot of things.

____

Weeks ago, near the height of summer, he’d found a children’s book which talked about picnics, and brought it back to Judith. Judith had loved the idea of a _picnic_ so much she demanded to have one for every meal. He hadn’t expected her enthusiasm to persist past the initial few days, but it had, so they’d reached a compromise: Sundays were for picnics. It’s been too cold for it, recently, but it’s beautiful outside today. Unseasonably warm. It might be the last day they get to do this in a while. 

____

It's lucky: it's seventy degrees, and the sun is shining. They’re all sitting outside, spread out on a blanket. Judith is grinning, radiantly happy, as Michonne cuts up and apple and hands it to her, piece by piece, and Rick can see that same happiness reflected in Michonne’s features, albeit more subtle. 

____

They are behind walls, sealed away in their little oasis from the rest of the world. 

____

It is warm out today. 

____

Inside their little bubble, nothing in the world is wrong. 

____

They are safe. 

____

_So this is it_ , Rick thinks to himself. _This is it. Be happy._

____

He lies down on his back and looks up at the pale blue sky. Judith crawls on top of him, laying her head down across his belly and following his gaze up to the sky. “Where are the clouds today, daddy?” she asks him. 

____

Rick runs a hand through her hair, absently, his gaze still fixed on the brightness of the sky. His other hand rubs at the side of his thumb, where he’s picked away at the surface layer of skin. “No clouds today, sweetheart. The air’s too dry for that.” 

____

_This is it. Be happy._

____

He thinks of that sorry little window, down in Negan’s cell, and the dilute light it lets in, even on the best of days. He thinks how he’s not been down there, this whole past week. He hears as Michonne picks up where he left off: “It’s autumn, now, Jude…” but he can’t follow her words past that. 

____

His chest _aches_ , like a real, physical injury. It aches like he’ll pull off his shirt tonight, and find his skin bruised black and blue. 

____

It should be alarming. It’s not. It’s… typical. 

____

It’s exhausting. 

____

\-- 

____

That night, Rick goes back to Negan. 

____

It’s some obscene hour of the night -- Rick’s not sure exactly when. He knows that Negan’s sleeping, with his arms wrapped around himself, when Rick comes down, and that Negan doesn’t say a word as he sits up and examines Rick in the minimal light, rubbing his eyes. He knows that the silence between them seems incredibly oppressive, even though it’s not something that’s irregular for Negan these days. He knows the darkness around them seems incredibly oppressive, even though the overcast night isn’t particularly dark. 

____

Rick sits on the stool in front of the bars. “Shit,” he says. “Fuck. Goddamnit.” 

____

In the darkness, he thinks he can see Negan’s mouth twist up in something like a smile. “I’m flattered, Rick. You’re finally speaking my language.” Negan’s voice is fuzzy around the edges with sleep. “Middle of the fucking night, you know.” 

____

It’s not even funny. Rick laughs a little anyway, half-choked. “Figured, from what you said last week, you don’t exactly need the sleep.” 

____

“Fuck, guess you’re right.” 

____

They lapse into silence. The instant they do, Rick feels sure that this was a terrible idea, arguably one of the worst he’s ever had. He stares down at his hands, picking at the skin on the side of his thumb. He should bandage it so he stops touching it -- he’s already stripped the outer layer of skin clean away, leaving the raw pink flesh underneath exposed and tender. 

____

“Come closer,” Negan says softly, into the silence. When Rick looks up, he realizes that Negan is on his feet, walking to the edge of the cell and sitting down, cross-legged. “I can’t see you for shit it’s so goddamn dark in here.” 

____

Rick’s not sure why, but he does. He gets off the stool, and sits down beside Negan, easily within the other man’s reach. It should feel… dangerous, like he’s getting within biting distance of something rabid, but it doesn’t. The truth is, Negan hasn’t been like that for the better part of a year now. 

____

“That’s right,” Negan says, like he’s coaxing some skittish animal into his reach. It’s a bizarre tone for him; almost comforting. “You ready to talk now? You gonna tell this old jailbird what’s goin’ on?” 

____

Maybe this is an awful idea. Probably, it is. He should be at home right now with Michonne. _Michonne_ , who held him together after Carl, even though the weight of her own grief. She’d listen to him. She’d understand. He _knows_ she would. Even just a few weeks ago -- a few weeks ago, when it was two years to the day since Carl went, and all he could do all day long was lie in bed and cry himself sick -- she’d held him in her ever-steady arms, and promised him that she’d be there for him. Promised him anything he ever needed. 

____

But the truth is? The truth is, Rick sees happiness shining in her eyes, most days. It’s _wonderful_. Seeing her, and seeing his daughter, happy? It gets him out of bed in the mornings. It’s the only thing left that seems to matter. It _is_ the only thing that matters. And he’d cut off his own right hand before putting his own senseless unhappiness in the way of their happiness. 

____

Negan… Negan has become to Rick, over the years, a personification of everything horrible in this world. Looking at Negan, sitting there barefoot and cross-legged across from him in the darkness, his hair ruffled with sleep, Rick’s not sure if his perception of Negan has kept up with the reality. But he is sure that sometimes, like on nights like this one, Negan feels like the only damn person in this world who makes any sense to him. The only person actually seeing him. 

____

“Listen,” Negan is saying. “You wanna sit down here in silence for the next fuckin’ hour? Go ahead. God fuckin’ knows I could use the company. But you’ve got a look on your face, right now, which says you have a _lot_ to say which you ain’t sayin’.” 

____

Rick startles. He doesn’t actually know how long he’s been silent. 

____

His thumb stings, and he thinks it might be bleeding. 

____

He looks up at Negan, and meets his eyes, and that seems to encourage the other man: “Fuck, Rick. Has it… has it been two years already? Since Carl? Is that what this is all about?” 

____

Rick swallows. “Yeah, it has been. Few weeks ago. But that’s not even… that’s not it, that’s not what this is about.” He puts his head in his hands, his fingers moving reflexively to run through his hair. It’s too short for that, now, and he feels ridiculous: sitting on the floor across from his mortal enemy, bars between them, trying to force out even a single sentence. “I don’t know how to talk about it. You won’t understand.” 

____

Negan presses his forehead against the bars between them. His beard makes him look older. More tired. 

____

“Try me,” he whispers. 

____

\-- 

____

Talking to Negan… helps. Arguably more than Rick is entirely comfortable with. As the month goes on, it turns into a regular thing, as much as something which occurs in secret and in the dead of night can be a regular thing. 

____

It isn’t just for his benefit, either. He realizes that pretty fast. 

____

In the strange space of their new understanding in which Rick is no longer Negan’s jailer, and Negan is hardly Rick’s old enemy, they speak together furtively as though they’re doing something forbidden -- Rick stumbling through explanations for things he’d never tried to put into words before, and Negan responding in little more than four-letter words of understanding. 

____

It astounds him, what Negan seems to understand about him. 

____

Rick softens to him, a little bit, even when he’s seeing Negan in the harsh light of day— he’s willing to admit that. He brings Negan books to read. He slips him precious squares of chocolate, and brings him down coffee in the mornings, sometimes. 

____

Sometimes, these days, Negan looks at him in the most baffling way. If Rick didn’t know better, he’d swear he sees Negan’s eyes go soft, when Rick comes down to see him. He’d swear that, when Rick first gives him a genuine smile, he sees Negan’s face go flush. 

____

He can’t afford to think about that. 

____

— 

____

One night, Rick comes down to find Negan already sitting at the edge of his cell. 

____

Negan’s cell has remained, throughout this, a boundary they have both respected almost to the point of paranoia. Not once has Rick reached through the bars to touch Negan, and not once has Negan dared to reach out to him. Not when Negan told him about Lucille, his voice steady but almost inaudibly low. Not when Rick talked about Lori, and how she went, and bent his head and cried for her. When that happened, Negan _had_ looked like he wanted nothing more in the world than to reach out to Rick and touch, but Rick hadn’t moved, and Negan had stayed still, too. 

____

But tonight, the instant Negan sees Rick, he slides his hands through the bars. 

____

“Please,” he begs, holding his hands out to Rick desperately. “ _Please,_ just…” 

____

Rick thinks of how, most nights he comes down here, Negan’s lying on his side, his arms wrapped around himself as he dozes. The whole of Negan’s posture is different, even, since he’s been down here. He holds himself more loosely, and more restlessly, his hands wandering aimlessly across his own body as he and Rick talk, moving without thought to his face and his neck and the length of his arms. 

____

Rick thinks he knows what this is. He doesn’t hesitate. It surprises him: he goes over, sinks to the ground, and clasps Negan’s hands in his own without a moment’s thought. 

____

Negan’s hands are shaking horribly. Rick squeezes. 

____

Negan doesn’t cry. For a second, he breathes like he’s gonna cry, but he doesn’t. Instead, his hands close around Rick’s, and he breathes in and out, slowly. “Okay,” he says to himself. “Okay.” 

____

A moment’s pause, as he collects himself, then: “How was _your_ day, Ricky?” 

____

Rick laughs. He can’t help it. It’s so _funny_. Everything single part of the absurdity of this whole situation hits him all at once, and he dissolves into laughter. 

____

Negan laughs, too, clutching at Rick’s hands. 

____

It’s December, now, but Rick doesn’t feel like it is. The moon is high and bright in the sky, round and perfect. She is beautiful tonight, hanging brilliant in the darkness. In that moment, Rick almost promises Negan, then and there, that he’ll see the sun again, on his own terms. That this won’t be forever. 

____

Not much feels right anymore, but this does.

____

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer!! do not take this fic as medical advice and attempt to self-medicate w/herbs or having talks with your mortal enemy


End file.
